


Interlude

by Akiko_Natsuko



Category: overwatch
Genre: Christmas, Dreams, Established Relationship, F/F, Home, Love, Promises, Reunions, Sanctuary, Secret Relationship, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-23 05:49:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16613108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akiko_Natsuko/pseuds/Akiko_Natsuko
Summary: It had been a promise. A promise that the thing between them wasn’t some fleeting fever dream, but something permanent and true, and while the war continued, and they played their parts on different sides, this house was their sanctuary. Here there was no Overwatch. No Talon. No Tracer. No Widowmaker. There was only Lena and Amélie, and the unspoken ‘l’ word.





	Interlude

   The house was nothing much to look at from the outside, that was the point of it, it wasn’t supposed to attract attention, but Lena couldn’t help but gaze wistfully at the houses either side that was fully decked out for Christmas. There were moments when she wished that she had that, that they could have that, but that time, if it was ever going to come was a long way off, and she shook herself, brushing off the moment of melancholy before heading up the garden path. She fought the urge to glance around, knowing that she had to look perfectly at ease as she slid the key out of her pocket and opened the front door, slipping inside and firmly closing it behind her.

  The hallway was dark, which meant that she was the first to arrive, and she hastily quashed the flicker of doubt that came with that realisation. It wasn’t rare for Lena to be the first to arrive. But it had been a long time since they had managed to arrange a time like this, and she had been quivering with nervous energy for days ever since the message had come to her through the encoded channel that Sombra had set up for them, and it was rising to a peak with the promise of seeing Amélie. _She will be here,_ she told herself sternly as she flipped on the hallway light, before shouldering her bag and heading for the stairs and the room at the top of them.

    The bedroom was just as she remembered, and she couldn’t help but smile as she ran a hand over the covers. The room was cleaner than she expected, and she had a feeling it was another thing they needed to thank Sombra for, frowning at that thought. She didn’t like relying on the hacker, but there was no other choice in the situation. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on that thought and she got to work unpacking her bag, not that there was much, as they only two days at most before someone would come looking for them. Still, for a moment she could pretend that this was real, that they had longer as she folded her clothes and set them in the drawers, leaving room for Amélie’s things. It made it feel a little bit more like a home, a little more like it belonged to them. Amélie would say that she was getting sentimental again, but she didn’t care.

    Needing to keep busy until Amélie arrived she headed downstairs to check out the kitchen and what supplies they had left, vaguely thinking that she could make something to reheat later. She certainly wasn’t letting her girlfriend cook after the fiasco last time, which had led to a ruined pan and smoky kitchen, and a very irritable Amélie as they had stood over the burnt-out dish. It amused Lena, that she was the better cook of the two, especially as whenever it was her turn to cook at the Watchpoint she went for the simplest things possible. Cooking took time, and she liked to be on the move.  It was a moot point she realised when she searched the kitchen and found nothing but an old box of cereal and several tins in the cupboard, they would need to restock at some point, and maybe for this visit, she could convince her girlfriend to indulge in some takeaway. Unfortunately, that also left her with nothing to do to distract herself with for the time being.

*

    She had eventually settled in a chair having discovered one of Amélie’s abandoned books in the bathroom and was already a couple of chapters in when she heard movement, not at the front door like there should have been, but at the bedroom window. Rolling her eyes, more fond than exasperated, she lowered the book and lifted her head just in time to see the shadow that dropped down in front of the window, and her lips quirked up at the familiar silhouette. It was hard not to bolt out of her chair to let her in, it had really been too long, but instead, she carefully marked her page and rose to her feet, slowly and deliberately moving across to the window.

    Amber eyes tracked each step that she took, and she was close enough now to see the frustration building, and she finally took mercy on Amélie, reaching for the window and unlatching, stepping aside to let Amélie swing inside. “You do know most people use the front door?” Lena asked with a laugh, closing the window behind Amélie.

“Eyes tend to be watching the front door…”

    There was an awkward moment of silence, the time that had passed and the battles that had filled that gap standing between them like invisible ghosts. Lena took the time to study Amélie, taking in the deliberately blank expression and empty eyes, the mask that she wore at all times and that always made her heart ache. Because she knew how much lay beneath the mask, the depth of emotion that not even Talon had managed to drive out and she hated seeing it hidden away, even though it knew that it was the only way for Amélie to survive. Still, it wasn’t needed here, and she stepped forward, keeping each movement slow and deliberate as she reached up for her girlfriend’s face, cupping her cheeks and tenderly stroking them. “You’re home, you’re safe.”

    Lena could see the hesitation, the reluctance to shed her defences, but Amélie had never been able to hold out against her, even when they had merely been Tracer and Widowmaker, and slowly, cautiously she leant into Lena’s touch as the tension melted out of her. “Yes, I’m home…” The blankness was melting away now, the amber turning warmer, more human as she let the mask drop away, her hands coming up to rest on top of Lena’s. “It’s been too long,” she murmured, closing the distance between them and Lena willingly met her halfway, the kiss chaste after so long apart. Soft, and growing softer as they moved closer, fitting together as one, hands falling and twisting together between them, both needing the contact after so long.

“You got away okay?” Lena asked when they finally broke apart, fingers remaining entwined as she stared up at Amélie, daring her to lie.

“Yes, Cherie,” Amélie murmured, but there was a hint of a smile on her lips. “You?”

“I’m good,” Lena caught the hint of concern behind the question, and she smiled, touched. They both knew that consequences wouldn’t be good for either of them if they were discovered, but Lena was safer, and it was a reminder of how far they had come for Amélie to be worrying about her.  “At least for a couple of days,” she amended. It had taken a lot of begging and bartering to make Winston promise not to call her for at least two days, no matter how dire the situation, but after that, all bets were off, especially as things had been heating up between Talon and Overwatch over the last few months. In the past two days would have been more than enough, but now… now it wasn’t enough, not anymore.

She wanted more.

     It had been so easy when this had first started. Back then they had been Tracer and Widowmaker, and it had been them desperately trying to deal with the tension between them, limited to short, heated meetings during missions. They had thought that would be the end of it. It hadn’t, and gradually those hasty, gratuitous meetings had become more frequent and less accidental, and at some point, between heated kisses and feverish touches, Tracer had become Oxten and Widowmaker had become Lacroix. It had been longer still before they started sneaking away, usually one hotel room and then another, never under their own names, and at some point, as they basked in the aftermath, curled up and fitting together in a way that they shouldn’t be able to and between tender caresses and light kisses, they had become Lena and Amélie.

    Amélie had been the one to break first, whispering Lena into a desperate, feverish kiss after a mission where they had nearly been forced to kill each other, clutching the smaller woman against her. They hadn’t said the ‘l’ word, but it had been there in the fingers roaming over their skin, lingering on every scratch and bruise the fight had left, and in the desperate, needy kisses, as they sought reassurance they had both survived.

    It had been after that they had invested in this tiny house, a place that was purely their’s even if they rarely got to visit. That hadn’t been the point though, it had been a promise. A promise that the thing between them wasn’t some fleeting fever dream, but something permanent and true, and while the war continued, and they played their parts on different sides, this house was their sanctuary. Here there was no Overwatch. No Talon. No Tracer. No Widowmaker. There was only Lena and Amélie, and the unspoken ‘l’ word. 

    That had always been enough, or maybe that was just what she had told herself, wanting to ignore the emptiness that came when they had to part ways. The pain that came when they faced each other in the field, the weight of the knowledge that one of her bullets could one day be the one to take Amélie out, the fear of what might happen when it all unravelled. Now though, with Amélie’s fingers twined with hers, amber eyes glittering with the emotions she would never show around others she found herself wishing fiercely that they could have more.

    They had talked about it, always in whispers, fearful that hearing it spoken aloud would take it further from their reach. But they had dreamt of a life without the war, without sides, where they could retreat to this house and always be Lena and Amélie. Where they could say ‘I love you’ without fear, where…

“Still dreaming, Cherie?” Amélie pulled her gently from her thoughts, lifting both hands, and pressing a kiss to the back of one and then the other, a soft, knowing look on her face. Lena met her gaze, seeing the same hopes, the same dreams and fears, only Amélie would never put them into words, not unless they were coiled together, the words lost as she whispered them against her skin. That was okay, Lena didn’t need the words…but Amélie did, she needed to hear them, to know that there could be a life for them beyond this, to know that Lena’s feelings hadn’t changed even after everything she had done. Lena smiled, holding Amélie’s gaze as she rose on her tiptoes to kiss her, just the faintest meeting of their lips, breath mingling as she pulled back just enough to murmur.

“Always.”

_I’ll keep dreaming, until the day it becomes a reality._


End file.
